Interesting idea, but in practice this is impossible. I wanted to develop for the Wii, so I emailed and inquired about the process of getting a Dev Kit. After reading my email, it was forwarded to the VC dept, because I hadn't had any AAA titles published. At the VC dept level, the email was sat on and I haven't heard from them again. Turns out you have to have a brick and mortar company to be able to develop for the Wii. Not a company you run out of your house, and certainly not a hobbyist developer. This is a major oversight by nintendo, as third party support really matters this time around. And I would love to develop for it.

SixFactor writes: A Wii user embarks on a weight loss campaign using the Wii as his principal exercise machine, and the Wii Sports suite as the program of choice. Thirty minutes a day for six weeks resulted in a loss of 9 lbs and 1.2 points off his initial Body Mass Index, without changing his current eating habits or other activities. This was previously featured on Digg, but Slashdotters who may not have gotten the memo may want to know too. Details can be found here:

The quarterly figures, released by games analyst Daniel Morse, show Nintendo sold 51,744 Wiis, whereas Microsoft sold 45,036 Xbox 360s.
However, since the Wii only went on sale from December 8, its figures relate only to the three weeks to December 31, whereas the Xbox 360 numbers pertain to the entire three-month quarter.

The Doomsday Clock has moved two minutes closer to midnight to 11:55. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who have maintained the clock since 1947 have moved it closer to signal the shifting concerns on global warming, the nuclear developments of Iran and Korea and the threat of a second nuclear age.

An anonymous reader writes: BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen announced in an interview that his company has developed a streaming version of BitTorrent. The streaming version of BitTorrent would make it possible to use peer-to-peer technology to stream high quality videos at low cost. More details about the project will be released around the middle of this year.

gurps_npc writes: According to this story at tgdaily.com a contestant in a radio station KDND (Sacremento)'s "Hold Your Wee for a Nintendo Wii", died of excess water intake.
Ten people have been fired and the morning show (The Rave) is now off the air.
So, is this a first? Has anyone else heard of someone just dying to win a video game?

The hosts of KDND-FM's "Morning Rave" — who go by the on-air names Trish, Maney and Lukas — were fired a day after the station announced it was suspending the show and investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Jennifer Lea Strange. [...]
John Geary, vice president and general manager of KDND parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, made the announcement Tuesday in an e-mail to reporters.

"Effective immediately, the 'Morning Rave' program is canceled and ten employees are no longer with the station."

A company spokesman, Charles Sipkins, confirmed the three DJs, as well as two other on-air personalities, "Carter" and "Fester," were among those fired. Five other employees who worked on the "Morning Rave" also were let go. All 10 were fired, the spokesman said, for violating terms of their employee agreements.

I used to work at a corporately owned radio station (full disclosure: not for Entercom, KDND's owner. I was a techie in radio in a previous life). But I can tell you from experience that most of the people fired were most likely not responsible for this event. At my station group, no events happened without the express consent of #1, the station manager, and #2, the promotions director. They're the ones ultimately responsible. So why isn't John Geary the one getting the boot? Is this just an example of Corporate America scapegoating the peons? What if you had been commissioned by your boss to write code that ended up being a danger? Would you be culpable, or your boss?

Richard Manley writes: "From Gameworld Network:
"An anonymous Best Buy employee claims that every store will have at least 15 Wiis for sale this Sunday. He says to expect between 35 and 45 Wiis at most stores, though some may receive less. The new shipment of Wiis will be promoted in the next Best Buy advert, so there will likely be a lot of potential Wii owners lining up. Some may even camp out to secure a Wii. If you're heading out to pick one up on Sunday, let us know how you fare.""